Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 6th November 2007
Facebook launches advertising “revolution”
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg today
announced “a completely new way of advertising online”. For the first time advertisers will be able to piggyback the “social actions” of Facebook users since, in Zuckerberg's words, “people influence people”.
Businesses can now set up their own pages and users can become fans in a similar way that they can invite friends into their personal network. This could work well for local businesses such as pubs and restaurants, for bands and music venues and brands such as Apple, that inspire customer loyalty, but probably has limited application for estate agents and property developers.
However,
Facebook Beacon could work well for property agents looking to encourage referrals and word-of-mouth recommendation. Here’s how it works. You put a piece of code on your website. When a buyer has an offer accepted on a property, you ask them to visit the page to share news of their purchase with their network of friends. A news story appears on their news feed page with a link back to your site, displaying the photographs and descriptions of the property.
Done right, this could be the easiest way for customers to tell their friends about this significant life event. Revolutionary? It’s not up there with the printing press but it could help you win new business.